


Sunset to Starlight (Shiro)

by zjofierose



Series: Form Ficlets! [8]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Married Sheith, Not Season/Series 08 Compliant, Post Season/Series 07, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Soft Keith (Voltron), Soft Shiro (Voltron), Sweet, copilots day, season 08 we don’t know her, shiethfest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-19 09:17:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19354024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zjofierose/pseuds/zjofierose
Summary: Waking to sleeping, dawn to dusk, Keith is Shiro's lodestar.





	Sunset to Starlight (Shiro)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sarensen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarensen/gifts).



> a Co-Pilots Day collaboration for the SheithFest with the wonderful @sarensen!

He doesn’t really know what possesses him to not only agree to take Keith out on the hoverbikes, but to end up racing with him-  Keith, this beautiful and brilliant boy who stole Shiro’s car and also his attention. In his defense, for all that Shiro has successfully internalized  _ discipline _ , he has not necessarily mastered impulse control, and Keith is the kindred spirit he’s never quite found before, bending low over the handlebars and grinning furiously in a concerted attempt to catch up. 

Shiro doesn’t let him. He knows this desert, knows every cavern and canyon, every curve of what doesn’t quite count as “road,” and he uses it ruthlessly to leave Keith in the dust. 

Still, Keith hangs with him, close enough that Shiro can hear him laughing like a demon, and Shiro is bursting with pride at the sheer amount of talent and determination shoved into one pocket-sized package. Nonetheless, Shiro absolutely cannot permit Keith to catch him, so he flings himself off the cliff, pausing just long enough to hope that Keith has sufficient self-preservation not to do the same. 

The free-fall is long and exhilarating, the roar of the wind in his ears and the feeling of weightlessness pulling his toes to his tailbone and releasing his joints and muscles from the ever-present buzz of pain and stimulation. It’s over too soon, Shiro pulling up at just the right moment to land safely and park, watching as Keith zips down the switchbacks to the bottom of cliff face, his eyes round and impressed.

Later, Shiro will explain the physics of the jump to Keith’s rapt face, watching as he clearly commits the trajectory and velocity ratios to memory. Later still, Keith will tell him about the loss of his father, his voice equal parts proud and resigned as he looks away into the empty desert, seeking someone who is not there. Shiro will share information about his disease more openly than he has in years, than he has since he met Adam, and will be touched by Keith’s angry concern for him. He doesn’t expect it, is so used to downplaying, to not upsetting anyone who might be uncomfortable with the concept of a terminal illness. He doesn’t quite know what to do with Keith’s fierce compassion, but he meets it as best he can. It’s what he always tries to do.

Later even than this, as they sit on a blanket and watch the sunset, Shiro will watch the way the fiery light illuminates the planes of Keith’s face, tinging his hair with bloody premonition and sinking his wine-dark eyes into shadow. It will feel like a piece he never knew was missing has finally slotted into place, that while he has always been whole unto himself, that now he is recalibrated; adjusted to account for the gravity of another body in orbit.

For now, he watches the puffs of dust as Keith navigates the slippery trail to the canyon floor, and wonders at the sheer serendipity of it all.

—

_ Later _

The moon is rising over the mesa, gold and round and full, and the heat of the day is fading into the rocks and the sand of the desert as Shiro chases the lights of the hoverbike before him into the canyons. Keith’s in the lead this time, taunting Shiro with his zips and turns, but Shiro sticks with him like a burr, like a bad luck penny dogging his every step. 

They ride for what feels like hours and also like no time at all before Keith pulls them up to a stop on top of a cliff’s edge, facing the deep twilight and the moon which has now climbed to a good 45 degrees. Keith pulls off his helmet and shakes his hair free, and Shiro’s heart hiccups at the sight of Keith gilded in moonlight as he parks his bike and steps forward to settle his own helmet on the seat of it. 

Keith pulls out a blanket that he keeps shoved in the seat compartment of his old hoverbike; it’s a Garrison issue heat reflective blanket, and Shiro laughs to see it, making Keith smile crookedly at him in the moonlight. 

“I haven’t seen that blanket in years,” Shiro comments as Keith shakes it out, settling it a safe distance from the cliff’s edge and flopping down onto it. 

Keith wrinkles his nose as Shiro comes to join him. “Still smells the same,” he says, and Shiro laughs again, unable to help himself. 

Keith’s body is warm at his side, the rustling of the desert echoing around them as they sit silent and still, a moment of too-rare peace wrapped around them. They watch together as the moon grows smaller and more white, climbing her way steadily above them to wend a steady path through the ineffable flow of the Milky Way.  _ We’ve been there _ , Shiro thinks,  _ we’ll be there again _ . The thought is still foreign, still surreal.

He turns his head and catches the starlight as it glints off the ring on Keith’s finger where his hand is spread on the blanket, and reaches out a gentle finger-tip to trace the shape of it. It’s been years now since Shiro put it there, but it still catches him by surprise sometimes, that Keith is here, that Keith is  _ his _ .

“Never taking it off,” Keith murmurs, his mouth tipped in a half-smile. “No take-backs.”

It’s a joke, and Shiro knows it, but he slips his fingers through Keith’s anyway, needing the uncomplicated reassurance of touch to ground himself to the here and now. They’ve been through so much together - so many near misses, so many actual losses. To be here, now, together in the starlit desert of their home planet is such a gift, such an unexpected blessing. Shiro can’t allow himself to take it for granted.

“I love you,” he says, voice low and earnest, and Keith’s expression shifts in an instant from gently teasing to careful adoration even as his free hand comes up to cradle Shiro’s face. His eyes are huge and dark, and Shiro could drown in them, knowing they contain everything he needs to be whole. 

“I love you, too,” Keith whispers, and leans in to kiss him. 

\--

Planets rise and fall and spin in and out of orbit. Stars are born in clusters of hot gas, and stars flame out in giant explosions, or collapse into ineffable density. Alien civilizations evolve, wormholes open and close, the Earth spins on her axis from sunset to sunrise to sunset again. 

Shiro counts none of those: he measures time rather in the number of heartbeats that pass from the first time their mouths meet to exchange breath; in the small touches that grow comfortable between them; in the shapes Keith’s mouth makes as he calls Shiro “ _ sweetheart _ ,” “ _ beloved _ ,” and “ _ mine _ .”

 


End file.
